Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Committee for underprivileged areas has recommended that Higher Education Commission (HEC) to provide maximum scholarships and admissions in Law to youths of Balochistan after the martyrdom of senior lawyers including three barristers in Quetta terror incident.The meeting of the committee was held in the Parliament house on Monday with the Senator Muhammad Usman Khan Kakar on the chair.

While addressing the members of the committee, the Chairman said that enemies of underprivileged areas sat in the PM house. He added that under-privileged areas of the country including Balochistan are still about fifty years behind other areas of Pakistan. He demanded that universities be established in under-privileged areas and scholarships awarded to youths of these areas.

“The Federal Government should provide funds to Higher Education Commission (HEC) without any delay for the promotion of higher education and special attention is required for the development of South Punjab, Sindh and under-privileged areas of Balochistan. Chairman HEC Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed while giving a briefing informed the committee that approximately 600 students hailing from underprivileged areas of the country are awarded scholarships. 200 are foreign scholarships while the remaining 400 will be distributed on merit basis at district level.

He said that new classes would be started in September in Gwadar and FATA universities respectively adding that new campuses of FATA universities would be setup in almost six agencies of FATA and a budget of approximately Rs 1.5 billion has been approved for this purpose.

“There are almost 40 million students in the country that deserve scholarships”, he said. The Chairman HEC further said that refund of fee for students of underprivileged areas has been extended to 106 districts while HEC has started direct payments of tuition fees to universities due to which poor and needy students did not deposit their fees. He added that from January HEC would take the tests for admissions in universities without charges and result of this test would valid and acceptable for two years.

He said that the government has increased the budget of HEC from Rs 1.8 billion to Rs 2.5 billion due to which ratio of admissions has increased in all areas including Balochistan.

“In USA, the government spends approximately Rs 200 million on every scholar of higher education while in Britain, the government spends some Rs 10 million on every Ph.D scholar”, Dr. Mukhtar added.

He further said that PhD scholarships for ten journalists of FATA have been awarded to two journalists adding that 92 % scholars come back home after completion of their higher education and provide services while remaining 8% prefer to stay abroad. The government charges total expenditure besides additional 25 % charges as per agreement from these scholars.

Dr. Mukhtar said that about 66 campuses of universities would be established in underprivileged areas. Some 31 campuses would be set up in one phase while remaining 35 would be set up in the second phase. Senator Samina Abid proposed that local residents should be preferred in recruitments in all faculties and other departments of these universities campuses.